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PRESS RELEASE 7 September 2008
Rice NGO urges NFA intervention in palay buying this harvest season to stop drop in palay prices
Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) today calls on the National Food Authority (NFA) to buy more palay from the farmers at the start of the harvest season this month to avert any further downtrend in palay prices. Jessica Reyes-Cantos, R1 lead convenor also warns the agency against any repeat of the crisis early this year and help the farmers recover from the very high cost of production due to the increase in fertilizer prices and other farm inputs.
"Now is the time for the NFA to influence palay procurement and set in place the P17 per kilo buying price that GMA promised at the height of the crisis last May. We would like to see the government rescuing the farmers this time, after flooding the consumers with low-priced rice and slowly driving the market prices of rice down," said Cantos.
Cantos also criticized the rice millers for covering behind the farmers' plight to raise their problem of rice stocks left unsold due to the down trend in prices of rice in the market.
"The traders and millers were part of the problem when they scampered to buy palay at the start of the harvest season last March driving up the prices of rice due to speculations. The government's panic buying of rice in the international market did not help as this further led the prices in the world market upward," explained Cantos.
Philippine Confederation of Grains Associations (Philcongrains) President Herculano "Joji" Co earlier complained of the imported rice that have been pushing down prices of wet palay, threatening to make farmers lose billions of pesos in income.
"It amazed us no end that the rice millers are now mouthing the farmers' loss in income when their real concern was on how to release their stocks that they practically hoarded at the time when they're anticipating more price increases in the market," said Cantos.
Co told the media that the situation is grim for many millers since they bought high before the NFA bombarded the market with 2.3 million metric tons of rice at subsidized prices.
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